


Expendable

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gym Teacher Dean, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Science teacher Cas, Teacher Castiel, Teacher Dean, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trouble In Paradise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5925541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas are teachers dating each other under the same academic roof. Just as Cas sees something promising with him, the school mandates budget cuts. Tension rises as they learn the departments up for debate are gym and science - the boyfriends' respective subjects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expendable

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this fan art by Tumblr user Vamiranda: bowlegged-benny.tumblr.com/post/138484251964/castiel-left-his-mark-on-me-vamiranda-dont

 

 

"C'mon angel, I only get to see you five minutes before the bell. I feel like we're drifting"—Dean drops a kiss inside his neck, tanned tendons bending into him like a rainforest without monsoon—"mhuhn, apart."

Cas chortles despite the tongue swirling something sweet on his windpipe, "Dean, if we were any closer we'd be one person."

"If that's how science works, I'll happily be its guinea pig."

Cas snorts, tightening his grip on Dean's broad, cotton-clad shoulders, "You're such a nerd."

"Says the _science teacher_ ," Dean scoffs, brushing his earlobe with long-coveted two front teeth before pausing to say: "Isn't that an offensive term?"

Cas raises a brow, unleashing one of his famous cocky grins he knows drives Dean wild. "Guess you'll have to teach me a lesson in sportsmanship, Coach."

Dean's hand draws Cas's perky ass into his every-man's land until his lightly freckled nose fences with Cas's. Dean's lips are slightly wet from the whistle anchored around his neck, but plush and warm and taste like the leftover lasagna he left him for lunch.

One thing Cas loves is how breathless he leaves Dean, no matter how many times they've done this (and how many times Dean's instigated it, thank you very much!). Unlike their pigmentation, Dean’s eyes never grass on lust and affection. Cas knows one day they’ll build gardens with new and existing roots and pollinate promising florets.

“God, you’re so hot, Cas,” Dean growls against his lust-blown lips, “Why are you so hot?”

“ _Well_ ,” Cas heralds, letting his finger trace the forming sweat stripe on Dean’s shirt, “if my body temperature was an increment higher, I’d be eating anything in sight just to survive. I wouldn’t be so hot then.”

“I repeat: Sign me the hell up.”

Cas slaps him playfully before diving in for another kiss. This one lingers longer and promises tongue. Just before they historically reenact the Donner Party, Claire Novak, Castiel’s niece, moseys past them with a Scripture-worthy look of mock-disdain.

“You know the bell rang two minutes ago, right?”

***

“Alright, who can tell me what the primary function of the mitochondria is?”

The first hand up is Krissy Chambers’. If she wasn’t so, _ahem_ , passionate about cells and other microscopic things, Cas wouldn’t know a lick about her.

“What’s the point?”

Cas snaps his head to the vertically challenged middle row. “Excuse me?”

“What’s the point?” Krissy reiterates. There’s no venom in her tone, but the dignified cross in her arms says something else entirely. “Since the school’s going to make budget cuts yet _again_ , and the science department is at high risk for being cut.”

Cas throws his head back flabbergasted as students conspire amongst each other like church rats. “What? Krissy, who told you this?”

“They’re rumors for now, but word travels fast in a small school.”

Cas lifts his eyebrows in a manner that’s probably both comical _and_ allegorical, seeing as he works with teenagers five days a week. Standardized science test scores dipped 3% in the last two years, but surely it isn’t cause for speculation. They couldn’t possibly call for reform on a department that’s just barely blossoming again. Besides, Cas wasn’t even teaching two years ago.

Then again, they wouldn’t cast a stone at the teachers peeking seniority, but they might cut a department with a fresh teacher—someone expendable.

Cas shakes his head, dispelling that last thought. “Listen, whether or not that rumor is true, in the meantime, we’re here to learn biology.” Lying doesn’t make him feel much better, but it eases the chatter a little. “So, who can tell me what the primary function of the mitochondria is?”

“Well it certainly doesn’t suck the energy _out_ of the room like Krissy does,” one student chimes boorishly.

The class erupts into laughter like Mount Vesuvius’s child. Cas doesn’t have to look to the back row to see Claire swinging her blonde braids and grinning her trademark Cheshire smile.

Cas hangs his head. He’s _so_ doomed.

***

Dean’s rummaging through the silverware drawer with a pair of flannel bottoms hanging like the blue wave of the Pepsi logo, exposing one lightly mottled and seriously salient hip, when Cas blurts it out:

“Did you know they’re thinking about cutting the science department?”

Cas can’t see much from his view on the couch, but the sound of the drawer closing would almost be unheard if it wasn’t for the spatula that always gets jammed. “Yeah?”

“Is that a yeah like _yeah_ I knew or _yeah_ like you’re genuinely surprised?”

“Uhm… yeah.”

“You knew!”

Dean plants his hands apart on the island before turning around contritely. Not even the exposed treasure chest Dean insists isn’t there can distract Cas this time. “In my defense, all I heard were rumors. And I didn’t want to cue you in because I knew you’d do that thing you do.”

Cas scoffs, throwing his arms over his chest, “What thing?”

“ _That,”_ says Dean, gesturing with his fork, “You’d get all defensive and take it personally.” Dean blows through his nose. “Baby, none of this has to do with you, alright? I know it feels like you never catch a break with the job security and the lasagna—”

“What’s wrong with my lasagna?”

Dean does that thing where he makes a one-man show out of opening and closing his mouth, like he’s mentally control alt-deleting everything he said until that point.

“It was a little undercooked the last time around, my point _is,”_ he rambles on, sitting next to him, “this has nothing to do with you, alright? The district’s just throwing another temper tantrum, you know how it is.”

Cas turns his gaze to the blinking television, where Lester Freamon comes in strong with another one of his pearls of wisdom: _“A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It’s the shit that happens while you’re waiting for moments that never come.”_

“Cas, hey, look at me,” Dean says with calloused fingers under his scruffy chin. Dean doesn’t need to touch him for Cas to get lost in him. “You are enough. If not for our diamond-pushing bosses, for me, alright?” Cas nods, allowing himself to be kissed. It’s certainly not tight enough to make diamonds, but it’s chaste enough to leave Cas chasing after stars.

Dean laughs pulling back, “Okay, no, you need to eat something, your breath is rank.”

“You were saying those mushy things to me just now, how did you expect me to eat?!” Cas blasphemes, unable to strap a grin to his face. Dean blushes the color of the Papermate eraser Cas uses 24/7 to cover the mistakes he makes.

Luckily he wakes up every morning to one _right_ decision.

Cas sighs. Hopefully the Board loves him as much as Dean does.

***

The Board doesn’t have a personal vendetta against Cas.

They also have it out for the only guy on campus donning red thigh-high jeans and a matching headband.

“Who the hell cuts P.E.?!” Dean blurts over the scuff of ham-handed freshman churning red rubber cutters.

Aside from his mountain of a beard peeking senioritis faster than most of their shared students, Benny Lafitte’s built like a train with a gold-platted engine. “Beats me. Remember that 100k we got a few years ago? _Depleted_ by sports,” Benny scoffs into his cooled off Americano. “Hell, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d have marched up to Fuller myself.”

“Thanks,” Dean sneers without looking at him. “What’re they even gonna do without balls and bats, run around the track? That doesn’t teach ‘em discipline that teaches ‘em complacency.”

Benny throws his neck back, impressed. “Big word comin’ from a guy in tighty whities.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe complacency’s what they need,” Benny argues, shrugging. “I mean Dean, they _are_ teenagers. It’ll keep ‘em from talkin’ back.”

“Benny, these kids need to be motivated, and more importantly they need to learn how to fight back.” Dean gestures to a gaunt white kid with bedraggled hair and a vice grip. “Take Garth for example. When he came into this class, Aaron and the other kids were picking on him so bad he sat there and took it. Now look at him, he’s a star player. The guy gets picked before anyone else.”

“You do have a point. Garth could barely form a syllable during our weekly historical reenactments. Now he cites the Gettysburg Address like the back of his hand.” Benny pauses to face Dean. “Even so, do you plan on usin’ that argument to swoon the votes, _‘specially_ when the other person facin’ cuts is your boyfriend?” Dean grinds his teeth so hard he can feel early onset TMJ. “I know you love him, but the kids aren’t the only ones who need to be fightin’, brotha.”

Dean nods solemnly, once to show he hears Benny and the other for his own understanding. He _is_ close to seniority, something he’s worked up to for the better part of his life. He loves Cas and everything he stands for, but sooner or later he has to stand for something he loves too.

He’ll talk to Cas later tonight. He’ll understand; he always does.

***

“You’re not serious.”

In Dean’s possession is a book detailing the Mark of Cain—a Biblical account of the world’s nastiest hickey— when Cas’s raspy voice stirs him from his reading. Good thing too, because Dean’s eyes might as well be leaving skid marks from traveling the pages so quickly. “What’s up, babe?”

“Mass murder, that’s what,” Cas says, newspaper in hand. Dean thinks: _How apropos. “_ Apparently the district is planning on cutting more than just one department. Look at this, science, music; did you know we had a _fencing_ class on campus?”

Dean sets his book down with a sigh. “I was gonna wait to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Cas asks, memory foam dipping as he turns to face his boyfriend.

Between eyes bluer than the plot of _The Abyss_ and their discombobulated AC, it makes it hard to properly express what’s on his mind. He presses his reading glasses further up his nose.

“My, uh… my department is one of the ones under consideration too, I guess.” Cas is on the cusp of doing that thing before he takes him into his arms where he tilts his head to the side with gated eyebrows, so Dean continues: “And I know how hard this is on you—for the both of us—but I think I should fight too.”

Cas’s hand itches on his thigh like a newly lit firecracker. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Dean says carefully, letting his lower lip spring free, “I need to keep my job too.”

“Oh. Well, if you really feel that way,” Cas starts, bedspread flying like flames toward the low ceiling, “then I think you should sleep in this bed tonight. After all, it’s _your_ bed, right? I’ll just sleep on _my_ pullout, the one _I_ brought into _your_ apartment. It’ll give me more support, anyway.”

“Baby, please, I didn’t mean it like—” The slamming door answers his plea. “That.”

***

“ _Oh my God, Dean,”_ Sam grouses, “ _I knew you were a jackass, but even for you this is a whole new level of stupid.”_

“Thanks, but if I wanted to call Mom I would’ve hit speed dial.”

Sam, his brother, a twenty-four-year-old Stanford Law major, snickers, “ _Sorry, sorry. Okay, solutions. Um, have you tried talking to him?”_

“I think he made it abundantly clear he didn’t want to talk when he slammed the bedroom door in my face,” Dean remarks stupidly. This isn’t the first time they’ve had a fight, but it’s the first Dean’s spent it in the throes of throbbing consciousness over sweet, surrendering sleep.

There’s a pause Dean mistakes for Sam hanging up, then he suggests, “ _Why don’t you both do something about your jobs?”_

“We are, Sammy. Why do you think he voted himself off the island—?”

“ _No, I mean collectively,”_ Sam urges, “ _like hold a fundraiser for both departments.”_

The corners of Dean’s lips turn up. “I knew there was a reason you were selling your soul to be a lawyer. You’re actually kind of okay at this negotiating stuff.”

“ _Up yours.”_

“Night, Bitch.”

“ _Sweet dreams,_ _Jerk.”_

***

A calloused hand on Cas’s shoulder roughly plucks him from a better reality.

“Hmmh, what?” he grumbles, digging himself further into the creaky bedsprings. Cas vividly recalls the many events that led to its decrepit state. He shakes those memories off, along with imminent insomnia prickling his skin like a flu shot. Nothing gets him into an upright position until he’s inhaled a fresh pot of coffee. Black, like the thing Cas actually _wants_ to be enveloped by at the moment. “’m still mad at you.”

“I know, angel,” Dean says into the dark. It’s so soft, Cas doesn’t almost register it. “You have every reason to be. And I know saying sorry won’t change your mind so easily this time.”

Cas is still faced away from him. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to know if your kids would be up for a dodgeball tournament.”

***

Dean and Cas earn Lawrence High $500 toward science and physical education.

Not even Garth Fitzgerald IV could save the team from complete domination from the science nerds—but hey, the money’s going to the same place, and Dean’s _dating_ a science nerd, so he can’t exactly complain.

And though Cas might be expendable in the eyes of the school, at least until he teaches longer, he has permanent seniority in Dean’s heart.

 

 

 


End file.
